Around us for 01-08-13

Published 12:02 pm, Monday, January 7, 2013

LUBBOCK — A Lubbock man charged with murder after a Friday night fire at Autumn Ridge Apartments that resulted in the death of Michele L. Terry, 51, faces additional charges.

Police arrested and charged Austin Hasten, 22, with murder in connection with the apartment fire at 2101 82nd St. According to jail records, Hasten now faces a charge of assault on a public servant, attempting to take a weapon from an officer and resisting arrest. His new bond is $3,015,000.

All the offenses are shown to have occurred on the same day.

According to the jail’s booking roster, Hasten lived in apartment 303. The victim lived in 305.

Sgt. Johnathan Stewart said firefighters were called to the scene and found Terry’s body after they entered her apartment to extinguish the blaze.

Police were called to the scene which, Stewart said, appeared suspicious. The report said Terry’s body showed signs of trauma. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

• • •

LUBBOCK — A year-long police vice squad sting in Lubbock has uncovered an alleged prostitution ring featuring a “pimp’s” Bentley and online ads for sexual services similar to those police are seeing more frequently, according to police and court documents.

Christopher Ryan Scott, 41, was arrested by Lubbock police Thursday and remains in the Lubbock County Criminal Detention Center on $150,000 bail. He is charged with felony counts of aggravated promotion of prostitution, money laundering and organized crime, according to Lubbock County Sheriff’s Captain Gordon Goldhammer.

Court documents filed by police and prosecutors show Scott’s charges stem from a police vice squad investigation into a prostitution ring allegedly operated by Scott.

“Evidence from this investigation shows Christopher Scott operates a prostitution ring, recruits females to work as prostitutes, collects the earnings from illegal prostitution and invested his money into his criminal enterprise as well as his CR Scott Investments LLC real estate business bank accounts,” the documents state.

One of Scott’s bank accounts showed five separate backpage.com advertisement purchases from November 2011. Backpage.com features job listings, including a section for “adult jobs.” The webpage for “adult jobs” has a disclaimer warning browsers the section contains sexual content, images and adult language.

Police were clued in to Scott while conducting an online prostitution sting on Aug. 15, 2012, according to the court documents. The documents state Scott was found in a house where two prostitutes were arrested in July 2011.

One of the women identified as a prostitute told police Scott used his 2005 Bentley to drive her and another prostitute to Corpus Christi to commit prostitution in March 2012. She said Scott collected all of the proceeds. Police located three online prostitute ads for the two prostitutes, one featuring an image of Scott “leaning into the driver’s side door” of the Bentley, during their time in Corpus Christi, investigators said.

Police say they also connected Scott to online escort/prostitution service advertisements and believe he conducted business through social media accounts and text messages to Scott’s phone from known prostitutes. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

• • •

AMARILLO — Cars rolled off the Gene Messer lot at record pace in 2012, as the nation saw a five-year high in car sales.

The dealership saw a 10-15 percent jump in sales over the past year.

“We’re hoping to get a 10 percent increase, year-over-year. We see, us as a company has grown, and we’re looking, as a matter of fact, right now we’re hiring people, we’re looking to grow our company,” Mathew Miera, general sales manager at Gene Messer said.

Amarillo National Bank saw a 25 percent increase in financing in 2012.

Senior Vice President John T. McElyea attributes the jump to a couple things. “There are people that are maybe wanting to, they’re confidant enough to go out and spend some money and get a new vehicle, but I think along those lines, a lot of people haven’t purchased vehicles and so with their vehicle getting more miles, aging, it’s just time to replace them.” — KAMR-TV